Opera House makes expanded list

The Opera House in Sydney and India's ancient Red Fort Complex were among four sites added to the United Nations World Heritage list yesterday.

A Japanese silver mine dating from the 16th century and a Parthian fortress in Turkmenistan were also inducted by the UN's cultural organisation Unesco at a meeting in Christchurch, New Zealand.

The Opera House in Sydney, Australia, designed by Danish architect Jorn Utzon, was a great artistic and architectural monument of the 20th century, Unesco said.

Utzon was a largely unknown architect when his design for the Opera House was selected in 1957. But construction, on a point near the Sydney Harbour Bridge on the site of an old tram shed, was dogged by controversy, politics and arguments. The Opera House was opened in 1973, but Utzon has never seen the finished building. He left the country in early 1966 after a public row with the government and a new team of architects was appointed to deliver the final version of his vision.

In a statement yesterday, Utzon said the listing gave his building a new value. "It is a gift to the city of Sydney," he said, adding that the listing was also a tribute to all who worked on the building.

In India, Unesco listed New Delhi's Red Fort Complex, built for Mughal emperor Shah Jahan, who ruled between 1628 and 1658. The palace, named after its massive enclosing red sandstone walls, was designed to imitate paradise, as described in the Qur'an. "The Red Fort is considered to represent the zenith of Mughal creativity which, under the emperor Shah Jahan, was brought to a new level of refinement," Unesco said.

Unesco explained the inclusion of the Iwami Ginzan silver mine, south-west of Honshu island, which contains the remains of large-scale mining, smelting and refining sites worked between the 16th and 20th centuries, because of its role in boosting Japan's economy. "The high quality of the silver resulting from the use of advanced techniques, and the quality of silver mined, contributed substantially to the overall economic development of Japan and southeast Asia in the 16th and 17th centuries, and prompted the mass production of silver and gold in Japan," Unesco said.

In Turkmenistan, Unesco listed the Parthian Fortresses of Nisa, which contain remnants of two cities from the Parthian empire from the mid third century BC to the third century AD. Archaeological excavations in two parts of the site have revealed "richly decorated architecture", Unesco said.